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Maritime trade grew enormously in Europe after c. 1100 AD, thereby contributing much to the European economic take-off commonly considered as the "Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages." In this article, determinants of both the formation of the Hanse's network-based system of trade in Northern Europe and its later dissolution are analysed using a multi-agent model. Findings are connected to the discussion in institutional economics and economic history concerning the importance of institutional developments in long-distance trade for economic growth in medieval Europe, the efficiency of self-enforcing institutions, and the divergence of institutional arrangements in medieval maritime trade. Finally, both potentials and limitations of agent-based models for historical research are discussed.

This paper aims to give a face to the 'globalization paradigm' at work in some global histories and to recognize similarities between this meta-narrative coordination of space and time, and older meta-narratives of the world. Narrating the space and time of the world in order to understand and represent its coherent meaning is not a new phenomenon. This paper looks to medieval history to show that despite claims that the history of globalization is unique to modernity, the meta-narrative is familiar to narrations of the space and time of the world produced in the Middle Ages, before the supposed advent of globalization. The aim is to challenge the assumption that the globalization paradigm is a modern phenomenon, since this assumption conceals links to old historiographies and epistemologies. It suggests that medieval history can offer a critical reflection on existing global histories as well as opening up new directions for the future of the field. In addition to questioning the 'modernity' of the globalization paradigm medieval history acts as a reminder of the historically constructed nature of global concepts and the need to think about the 'globe' as a diversely narrated and constructed subject rather than a singular-empirical object. The paper looks to the European Middle Ages to reflect on the politics of conceptualisations and historicisations of the 'globe', and to show that pluralities are not only produced beyond Europe but within it, and this is a tactical-historiographical move to break away from the contours of pre-existing critiques from the fields of postcolonial and Latin American studies.

The article considers the reasons for the difficulties of etymologization ancient ethnic and geographical names of the Volga-Oka interfluve. Shows the historical background and general foundations of a number of ethnonyms, ethnotonyms and toponyms (Saami, Merya, Murom, Chud, Lob river, Ruza river, Moskva River, Moscow, Mozhaisk, Kolomna, etc.). The author presents a set of identical names of the Volga-Oka interfluve and places of established settlement of the Saami. The facts and substantiations presented in the article lead to the conclusion about the existence on the territory of the Volga-Oka interfluve before the appearance of the Slavs of regional toponymy based on the Sami and, possibly, the near Finno-Ugric languages.